Salt, Pine, and the Taste of Fire
by drinkerofstrongcoffee
Summary: Johanna-centric story arc. Will start on the day of the 71st Reaping, and the first few chapters will include some flashback to earlier years. I'll jump around quite a bit to get to the Quarter Quell. Eventual Joniss. Notes, comments, etc., are welcome and appreciated. Rated M for eventual language, violence, adult themes, etc.
1. Chapter 1

Johanna closed her eyes and let it wash over her again, just as she did every Thursday at sunrise. The soft breeze in her face, the sound of waves falling against the sand, and the unmatched scent of pine mingling with salt air.

This was her favorite part of the week, where she went in her mind when work grew too toilsome or talk of the Capital became too irksome. She must have swung her axe at least a few thousand times with the song of waves breaking against the shore playing in her mind.

Today was a bit different though. The day before the reaping was always different. It always held its own sense of dread. Johanna wondered who it might be this year. After today she would only have one year left for her name to be entered, but that was never really what she thought about. Instead, she wondered if it would be someone she knew, someone she cared about.

The chances of it being her were so slim. She never entered her name in extra. The chance of it being her family - well, Harris was done. Last year was the last time he had to participate. But there were still her two younger siblings. Benjamin was fourteen, Kara only twelve. Johanna was smart; she knew the math. Their family would almost certainly be spared, so she pushed away the stab of fear in her chest.

But she could no longer push away the dread for the one whose name would be drawn. Not hers. Not her brother or sister's. But someone's. Someone she and Harris worked with. Or maybe one of Benjamin's friends from the mill.

There was a time when Johanna had tried her best to ignore the Reaping altogether, but she had learned all too well how pointless that was. She remembered that Thursday, two years ago, like it was yesterday.

—

"_Will you still come?"_

"_What?" Johanna yawned lazily, Tara's question not quite breaking the early-morning fog._

"_If something happens, if they call my name, will you still come here?"_

_Johanna sighed. She wanted to tell Tara to stop saying things like that. Of course her name was not going to be drawn. They would go to the Reaping, just like every year, and then they would leave, try to forget, and move on. But she knew her friend too well to dismiss her fears. That would only hurt her. So, instead of offering the sharp retort that had made its way halfway up her throat, Johanna swallowed her temper and placed her hand over Tara's smaller one. _

"_Would you want me to?" Johanna hated asking, because it gave credence, validation to the possibility that Tara might not join her any more on their weekly quest. _

_Tara didn't answer at first, but she flipped her hand over to interlace her fingers with Johanna's. She was still facing the fog over the ocean tide when she finally answered her friend's question._

"_Yes. Every Thursday. For sunrise."_

"_OK."_

"_But if you come through the night, then you should remember to always bring your axe, just in case. You always forget."_

_Johanna rolled her eyes but kept her voice level. "Alright. I promise."_

"_And I'll meet you here-"_

_Johanna cut her off. "Oh, don't be so melodramatic, Tara." She allowed herself a bite to her tone, because she could see that Tara was grinning now._

"_What?," she teased her, "You wouldn't want me to come back to watch over you?"_

"_Watch over me?" Johanna huffed. "More like haunt me. You'd be the most impossible ghost. 'Shouldn't you head back now?', 'You'll be late for work.', 'Why don't you wear that dress your mother made you?'"_

_Tara shook her head in an effort to disapprove of the mockery, but she couldn't help but laugh. "Well, you don't believe in ghosts or spirits, so you shouldn't be too worried."_

_Johanna smile faded a little. "If anyone has a soul though, it'd be you."_

_Johanna wasn't sure, but she thought her friend blushed slightly. She stood up too quickly for her to tell._

"_As much as I hate to give credence to your mimicry, we really should head back. The Peacekeepers will come in soon."_

_Johanna yawned again as she stood up to follow her friend back into the pines._

—

The reverie broke with the faint sound of a barking seal, and Johanna's head snapped up to see a small group at the water's edge. Her lips slipped into a smile. Tara would have loved this. They had only spotted them a few times before, and Johanna had only seen one once since the day of the Reaping two years ago. They were such a rarity.

She knew it was best to head back now. It would take at least two hours to make the trip.

Her mother had asked her to wait till tomorrow - it made her nervous for Johanna to go out the night before the Reaping. But Harris had slipped his arm around their mother's shoulders, and her father had nodded his approval when she said she had to leave. After all, she had promised.

With one last, deep inhale and a final glance at the seals playing in the waves, Johanna reached over for her axe and stood to leave. She hadn't gone far beyond the tree-line this morning. She had had the peculiar feeling that if she stepped onto the sand, then she would never be able to bring herself to go back.


	2. Chapter 2

Johanna ended up running at least half of her trip back into town, so it didn't take as long as she had expected.

Harris and Benjamin were playing a game on the ground outside of their cabin when she got back.

"Mother was about to send me out looking for you." Harris grinned his lopsided grin up at her.

She shook her head. "We still have hours before we have to leave though."

Her older brother shrugged. "You know how she gets, especially on the Reaping."

At the sound of that word, Johanna's eyes snapped to Benjamin, who was watching them silently. She quickly felt the need to change the subject. She didn't like the thought of Benjamin or Kara feeling nervous about today.

"What are you two doing out here anyways?"

"Checkers."

"Who won?"

Benjamin just shrugged in reply, which of course meant that he had been thoroughly beaten.

"I hope you didn't let him cheat, Benji."

The younger boy shrugged once again. "Probably."

Harris laughed. "Funny, that's what he said happened when he played you last week."

"Oh you did, did you?" Johanna laughed as she ducked down to put the younger boy in a playful headlock.

"Ugh, Jo, you're sweaty." She let him go without much struggle.

"I guess I should go clean up before mother gets nervous and thinks I'm going to try skipping or something."

Before she could turn towards the house, Harris had jumped up from his spot on the ground. "Hey, can I talk to you for a second?"

"I'll go clean up." Benjamin announced and quickly darted around them and into the cabin.

"What is it?" Johanna had known Harris wanted to talk to her about something. She just didn't know if he'd get around to it. She had almost been hoping he wouldn't.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, suddenly seeming much younger than his nineteen years, and shuffled his feet. "I need to tell you that I'm sorry."

Johanna furrowed her brow. "Sorry about what?"

"About last year."

An uncomfortable pause filled the air as Johanna realized what her brother meant.

"I should have gone off with you. Into the woods or out to the coast or wherever it was you were going. I shouldn't have stayed. And I want you to know that I won't do that this year. I don't need to stay and watch. I don't want to stay and watch. However you want to handle this, I'll be with you during the games. If you want, I mean."

Johanna looked past her brother, over his shoulder - which was really saying something, because his lanky frame was quite tall. Last year, during the games, she had been a mess. They'd pretended she had the flu, or else she would have been in trouble for missing so many shifts.

"It wasn't your fault, Harris."

"I know. But I wasn't there. And I should have been. I know - I mean, I really know - what Tara meant to you. And it wasn't fair for me to just…" His voice trailed off.

"Harris-"

"No, listen. This year will be different. But that means you can't check out. If you go off, that's fine, but you have to tell me before you leave. You can't just miss shifts - if you need me to, then I'll cover for you some, but you can't just check out."

It was hard for Johanna to take things like this gracefully, but she knew that her brother was trying to fit a hundred conversations they should have had into this moment. So she played along. "I won't."

He didn't wait another moment before plunging ahead. "And try not to be so hard on Mother, alright? She just worries about you, Jo."

This time, Johanna cut her brother off firmly. "I don't want to talk about that, Harris."

Her brother's face softened. "Johanna, she thought you were going to kill yourself."

A harder edge crept into Johanna's tone. "Well, I didn't."

They stared each other down for the next few moments before she broke the silence. "Look, I know, OK? I know it was bad. But I've been better for months. You know that."

Harris sighed. "We're just... we're all a little worried."

He didn't finish the thought, but Johanna knew what he meant. They were all worried that she would sink back into depression, that the games would bring it all back for her again.

"I'm not going anywhere. I promise." Harris nodded his head, and she reached over to pat his shoulder. "I really do need to go get cleaned up now."

Johanna shook her head as she walked inside and hung her jacket on one of the wall hooks. Harris was so unlike her; it was a miracle they had ever grown close. He wanted to talk about everything, while she would prefer to let silence rule. It wasn't his fault that he'd waited till now to address his worries. She'd bolted every time he had tried to talk about Tara or the games before.

It had seemed that everyone knew the depth of her feeling for Tara when she hadn't come home from the games two years ago. They just hadn't felt the need to talk about it. Except Harris, that is. He was always trying to corner her for little check-ups and conversations.

Johanna had finally found the switch, halfway through this year, to start acting normal again. She'd found a way to get over the image of Tara's limp body, or at least banish it to her dreams. And she'd found a way to smile again when she let herself start talking to Tara every Thursday morning instead of just staring blankly into the ocean. The only thing that bothered her about beginning to let go was the fear that people might forget how important Tara had been, how softly she had spoken or how easily she had laughed. So it was nice to hear that Harris remembered that she was important to her. For that alone, she appreciated her brother's efforts.

She washed quickly and slipped into the dress her mother had laid out for her. Kara joined her in their room while she was regarding herself in the mirror. She wished she didn't look so slight, so wiry. She should eat more - she knew that. Just like every time she regarded her reflection like this, she was struck by how much she looked like their mother. Her eyes, her chin, her smile. She reached up to touch her hair, which hung to her shoulder. She had almost cut it last month. She should have.

"What's wrong, Jo?"

She smiled at the younger girl's reflection in the mirror. "Oh, nothing. I just wish I had cut my hair."

"For today?" Kara sounded surprised, and it shook Johanna from the thought.

"That's silly, isn't it?" With a smirk, she swiftly pulled her hair back into pony tail and went to sit on their bed.

"You look nice."

"Thanks." Kara gave a twirl with her new dress. But then her grin faded. "Seems kind of silly that we get all nice for this."

Johanna nodded knowingly. "We have to though."

"I know." The girl sat down beside her on the bed with a sigh. "Do you miss her more, on the Reaping?"

Johanna felt her shoulders tense and her throat tighten ever so slightly. She took a moment to answer. "Yes. I do."

"Did you talk to her this morning, out by the water?"

Kara was looking straight into her face, so Johanna forced herself not to stare into the hands on her lap. Kara was the only one she ever talked to about this.

"I did." She smiled slightly at the memory. "There were a bunch of seals out today, Kara. I'd bet anything that she sent them there for me to see."

The girl smiled broadly. "Do you really think so, Jo?"

Johanna shrugged softly. "I think I might."

The girl sighed and started to get up before turning back to her. "Momma told me that when you love someone that much, they don't ever leave you. There's too much of them that's a part of you for them to ever really be gone while you're still around."

Johanna stilled. "She really said that?"

The girl stood up and nodded before throwing a hug around her neck. Johanna hugged her back before whispering a thank-you into the girl's shoulder.

The girl smiled again as she leaned back. "Let's go eat. I don't want to have to rush, and Father wants to get go pick up some people to take with us."

Johanna acquiesced. Their father always took the mill truck, piled with other kids making their way to the square a town over, where the Reaping would be held.

Johanna stole one last look at the mirror before leaving the room. She still thought that she should have cut her hair.


	3. Chapter 3

_Thank you to everyone who takes the time to check this out. I'm realizing that this might end up being a pretty long fic. Hopefully I'll post steadily on it until it's finished. This is my first fanfic, so I'm not sure if I'm actually supposed to say that The Hunger Games and its characters belong to Suzanne Collins, but obviously they do. I'm just appreciative of the chance to play around w/ the characters and universe she created. It's kind of like the easy-bake oven of fiction, right? OK, anyways, thanks again for reading. Comments are very welcome._

* * *

A couple of hours later, after they had all eaten together and gathered many of the children from their outpost into her father's truck, they finally rumbled off towards town. Johanna sat up front in the cab with her parents, away from all the children who huddled together where her father normally loaded freshly cut timber.

She was glad her father had suggested it and that Harris had offered to stay in the back with them all. It was too large a group, too much of a chance that one of them would be chosen, and that made Johanna feel like she might vomit. It was making her think of Tara.

They had hardly spoken the whole way into town, her father's usually jovial nature uncharacteristically grim. It almost scared her when her mother broke the silence.

"I was hoping you'd help me with the stew when we got home, Johanna?"

"Sure." Johanna almost shot out her answer too quickly. Normally her mother wouldn't ask help with supper, but Johanna knew that she'd be making more than usual. She did every year during the games, starting right after the Reaping. She'd make enough to send a meal over to the tributes' homes. It was her sign of solidarity.

Of course, she hadn't asked Johanna to help her the past couple of years. No one had known quite how to handle her before, and she and her mother already struggled to work together as it was. They were too alike - it was asking for trouble to keep them in the same room for too long.

But now she was making an effort, something to try to keep Johanna close to home for a while before she could bolt into the pines and off to the smell of salt air. Johanna reached beside her and awkwardly patted her mother's hand. They might be too alike to be peaceable at times, but she knew her mother would understand what she wasn't saying. She wasn't sure how, but she was going to be better this year. She wasn't going to lose it.

They were early. Naturally. Johanna wished their father could shed his need to be overly punctual for this one day. But no - they were always early for the Reaping. Even the younger children were beginning to look grim as they all unloaded from the truck.

It looked like they had only just finished setting up the screens. She caught herself staring blankly at one of them when Benjamin squeezed her hand. He grinned at her, that same lopsided grin that Harris was always wearing, and she made herself smile back.

Kara was already walking off with a group of her friends to stand with the few other girls their age that had already gathered in the square. As if she remembered she had forgotten to say anything, she turned to wave at them quickly before continuing on.

"Do you want to wait here for while?" Benjamin sounded concerned.

"Oh no, I'm fine. Go ahead. I'll see you in a bit."

Her brother squeezed her hand once more before walking away to join his friends. She would have waited longer by the truck - she wanted to wait longer by the truck. But Harris was walking up behind her, and she just didn't think she could talk about anything right now. So she tossed a quick goodbye over her shoulder and walked away from her parents.

Johanna wasn't sure if she wanted the time to move quickly or stand still, and the next half hour ended up passing both too quickly and too slowly for her satisfaction. As the square began to fill, she felt her muscles tense.

So this was it. The next two tributes would probably have arrived by now. Everything would change for them. Since losing Tara, she couldn't keep from thinking about it that way. She ended up clenching her hands at her side and trying to drown out the buzz of new arrivals as the moments ticked by.

Finally, it was time. Minda strutted onto the stage and gave her customary speech. Johanna heard none of it. She only noted that the woman's hair was green this year. The idiot probably thought it was some honor to their district, as if wearing leaves or painting her skin the color of tree bark or dyeing her over-processed hair green would mean some kind of kinship with the people she came to speak to.

She and Tara had mocked the leaves two years ago, finding humor even on that foreboding day. They had been ridiculous leaves, painted a hundred different colors. Somehow, Minda's attempts to bond always ended up making her look like she fit in even less among the pines and hardworking people of her district. Now, her green hair only reminded Johanna of brightly-colored candy that her father had once brought home as a treat. Johanna had hated that candy.

Everyone grew still, and then Johanna realized that Minda was already walking over to the reaping ball. It was already time to draw a name. Johanna had one quick thought for Kara, but as soon as the notion jumped into her head, she pushed it away. Kara would be safe. It would be someone else.

Minda drew a name and walked back to her microphone.

Johanna's ears started to ring.

The microphone had been raised to accommodate Minda's unnatural height. That was the only thing about Minda that made Johanna think of trees - her height. The spindly woman leaned forward and spoke in her nasally tone, just as she did every year to announce the tribute.

Whose name had she called? She hadn't caught it. And then Johanna realized that everyone was looking towards her section. She turned her head, and the ringing grew in her ears. She heard someone yelling - her father? Who had Minda called?

A girl standing beside her, someone Johanna faintly recognized from visits into town, grasped her wrist. "Johanna, she called your name."

Johanna barely made out the words through the ringing. The girl looked - sad, maybe? Johanna could not tell. There had to be some kind of mistake or-

She cut off her own train of thought. They had called her name. Everyone was watching her. The ringing continued in her ears, but Johanna quietly slipped out of her row and walked towards the stage. Minda watched her impatiently as she finally made her way up the steps to stand beside her.

Johanna stared out at the hordes of people waiting in lines. They'd come into town from all the outposts. They'd come with the smallest chance of being called. Now half of them were safe.

She heard nothing else while Minda called another name. The ringing in her ears was too much. She had to look over as a boy climbed the stairs in order to know who else had been called. She knew him - he was from another outpost. She couldn't remember his name, but he seemed to be about Benjamin's age. Maybe her mother would have stew sent to his family. Or maybe someone would send stew over to her own cabin tonight. Maybe-.

And then they were being ushered inside a building, but still Johanna heard nothing besides the ringing in her own ears. It didn't start to subside until they left her alone in a room.

—

Johanna wasn't sure how long she waited before the doors opened and her family filed in. Her father wasn't with them.

"Where's-"

Harris didn't let her finish. "It's OK. He's fine. They won't let him come back though. He got a little… it's fine. He just can't come back."

And then she was being hugged, nearly tackled by Kara and held too tightly by Benjamin. Harris looked at her fiercely. "You can wield an ax as well as anyone, Jo. Just get to an ax. Get to an ax and-"

The guard at the door cut him off. "Two minutes."

Johanna shrunk. They had only just come in.

"Say goodbye and go meet your father."

Johanna head snapped to her mother. She had forgotten she was even in the room. No one argued, not even Harris. No one ever argued when their mother looked like that.

Harris kissed the top of her head, she was embraced again, and then they were gone. Johanna might have found the nerve to be angry that her mother sent them away had she not been wearing that expression.

The older woman walked over and gripped both of her shoulders, but she did not pull her in for an embrace.

"Harris is right. You'll use an ax. But you forget what he said about getting one right away."

Johanna's eyes narrowed, but her mother didn't give her the chance to cut in.

"You cannot win if you charge in with an ax right away, Johanna. When you hear the signal to go, you will run. You will run, and then you will hide. Do you understand me?"

"But what-"

"You'll hide until the end. Until the last moment, you won't let them see that you can be strong. You need them to see you as weak."

"But the judges-"

Her mother shook her slightly. "No. Not even the judges can see. Otherwise the others will want to take you out right away. Not even Heinrich needs to know."

Heinrich… that was the boy whose name had been drawn with hers. And then it hit her. Her mother was saying to lay low until the end so that she could kill them. To kill Heinrich. To kill whoever was left.

She felt her knees start to buckle, but her mother shook her again.

"Johanna. Listen to me. You will do what you need to do. You will hide. And then, when the moment is right, you will save yourself. And then you will come home."

"Come home?" Her voice sounded hollow.

"Yes." Her mother's voice grew soothing. "You will come home. And it will be over."

Her mother's hold was strong and steady as she embraced her, and then she was gone.

The rest of the day was a rush of people and explanations as they began their journey to the Capital, but Johanna only let herself think of one thing, even as she slipped into a drug-induced sleep that night. All she thought of was what her mother had said. _"And then you will come home."_


End file.
